I have lived in both Mystic and Stonington Burrough for several years. Both are great walking towns for photographers. Both sides of Mystic River have roads that have public accessibility for landscape/river photos from US 1 (Boston Post Road) south to Long Island/Fisher's Island Sound and Noank Village on the Groton side of the river. Stonington Burrough is a peninsula with easy access to the water for interesting views including the fishing dock (which has good parking). Don't miss the views from the little wild life preserve at the northeast end of Wall Street (which intersects both Main Street and Water Street). There are usually no cars in the little parking area at the preserve. Barn Island, which is east of Stonington, is usually quite free of visitors except at the state boat ramp, (with appropriate signage), at the end of the very narrow access road. Unless you have years to investigate you can keep yourself busy without going outside of these three places for months.

The latest malodorous phone scam is to call a couple times on the pretext of being an independent political action committee (PAC) conducting a survey with only one question per phone call. The scammer asks the question, thanks you for cooperating and asks to call again soon with another question. The purported purpose is to post the result of the surveys along with the position of various politicians on the question. The second call is the same.

The third call changes up and explains more thoroughly the purpose and methodology and then (here comes the "sting") he now says the process costs money and needs a small donation of $20 and wants your credit card number, expiration, name and address. If you want to play along, give him any kind of gobbledegook not close to reality. Then he wants you to spell your name and repeat some item or other (give something more, but different B.S.) ... and by the way could you make it $10 more to $30.

It starts with a "grooming" to get you accustomed to doing his bidding (answering a simple question) and it's just a con job to feed the I.D. theft industry with a nice supply of data. Toss a monkey wrench into it.

If you want some fun feed it garbage or waste the robots time by putting it on "hold" with the explanation that there's someone at the front door. Alternately, lay the phone on the table and walk away. Eventually, you will hear a loud alerting sound to let you know your phone is off the hook. Your Caller ID will show a phone number in all probability already listed as a phone scammer's line on the web.

You have luck in an amateur model with a natural gracefulness and the more you work together you will both have even more fun. I have read the other comments and there are good suggestions, but don't worry to much about them. These photos have a look akin to the old motion pictures called "film noir". An interesting woman in a gritty environment. Keep it going!

If you like to stop and shoot whenever you see something you consider worthy of a photo I suggest you start with a smart phone camera to begin with. It's something you will likely have with you most of the time because it's so easy to carry. Whereas, with a dedicated photo camera it's often home on the shelf. I've been a lifelong photographer and very often recall not having a camera with me when I came across something photo worthy. The best camera is one that is in your hands.

Before looking at another lens be sure that the lens is the problem with sharpness.

A steady tripod and use of a cable or remote shutter release may reveal another cause. Also, some post processing apps need a bit of the sharpening tool.

I'm running a Mac and pps files open with the Mac app "Keynote".